“I thought you weren’t coming,” she says, her tone in this weird place between happiness and annoyance.
“I said I would, didn’t I?”
“You did.”
“Now let me in.If you still want to see me, that is… “
This is all so new to her, and she still sounds a little sheepish, so I better take control of the situation from the start.Else everything could be over before it even begins.
“How?”she asks, proving me right that she’s gonna need a lot of guidance.
“Open a side door for me,” I suggest.“Or if there’s a way in by the beach, we could try that.”
“Yes,” she says, her voice more excited now.“There’s an old door in the fence on the beach.It’s never locked, because everyone thinks it’s rusted shut.But it’s not.Chiara managed to get it open a few years ago.”
“That’ll work.”
She starts giving me instructions on how to find it, and two minutes in, I’m sure I’m better off searching for it on my own.
“I’ll be there,” I assure her as she pauses.
“OK,” she breaths, sounding scared and happy this time.
I don’t waste any more time planning and talking after that.We can do all of that once we’re on the beach together.Or not at all.
Because the two of us, we can’t make any plans that other men won’t render pointless in the next day.All we’ve got is tonight.Just one night of careless abandon, of doing what we want, surrendering to how things could be, ignoring how they will be.One night of light, before the darkness swallows everything.
Chapter43
GIANNA
I’d givenup expecting him.I’d even had a little cry over it, and I’m desperately trying to erase the last traces of that off my face as I hurry to meet him.The gold dress looks as amazing now as it did in the store.I’m not wearing anything underneath it.
The house is eerily quiet, my mom and sisters all asleep and the guards either camped out in their house at the edge of the estate or prowling the garden.They don’t keep as close an eye on us here as they do in the city.Mostly because the house is so secluded and they think all the ways in and out of the garden are locked up tight.And they are.Except for the old gate on the beach.
I hope he finds it.I hope I explained well enough where it is.
Getting out of the house is easy.And every creak of the floorboards under my bare feet sends my heart fluttering faster in anticipation of the kisses, the touches, the way this dress will slide off my skin as he takes it off me.
I put one of the large black raincoats hanging in the wardrobe downstairs over it, because I’m sure the dress will shine too bright even in the faint moonlight as I cross the garden to get to the beach.
The wet grass is cool and soft against my feet as I rush towards the sound of the waves licking the shore, batting against the rocks that hide the entrance where he’s waiting for me.
I keep to the shadows, stopping every so often to check for guards patrolling the garden, making sure my way to him is clear.I spot no one, and the only sounds breaking the nighttime stillness are the waves, an occasional hooting of an owl and the whisper of my feet as I cross the lawn.
The very air grows cleaner and crisper as I reach the beach, possibility and excitement, happy anticipation crackling in every breath I take.
I feel him standing there, waiting for me, before I see him.And as our eyes meet across the beach, some sort of invisible circle is closed.There will be no going back after this night.I feel that deep in my core.And the knowledge makes me quicken my step.
That sun that radiates off him is bright even in the dead of night.And it grows even brighter as I drop the raincoat and go to him in just my golden dress, which glimmers and shines like true gold—almost as bright as his eyes.
He’s found and opened the rusty gate for himself and is standing in the sand by the rocks, right in the middle of the alcove I envisioned when I daydreamed of this night.
The slight breeze is carrying the clean scent of the ocean and that special musky aroma that’s all him.Fire, wood, and stone somehow, and a cologne that makes my knees weak every time I smell it.I didn’t even realize how much I missed it until this moment as he walks to me, taking my hands in both of his and pulling me close.
“I was so afraid you wouldn’t come,” I whisper and he chuckles, the sound originating deep in his chest like the tremor before an earthquake.
“I wouldn’t stand you up for the world, my little golden goddess.”
